Little drabble, seeping out of my brain due to misheard lyrics. It may help if you know the song.

Enjoy!

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Listening to Donny and April sing off-key while doing the dishes:

Mikey shook his head. "What're they singing, anyway?"

Leo looked up from his book. He concentrated on the words for a moment. "It's American Pie. By Don McLean."

The expression on Mikey's face was incredulous. Leo shook his head and went back to the novel. Realizing his brother continued to stare at him, he sighed and answered the unasked question. "I read about it, okay?"

"Okay, smart guy—" Mikey said, obviously intending to not let him go back to the quiet endeavor of reading, "—what's it about then? I can hear what they're saying, but it doesn't make much sense."

Leo tried not to sigh again. He didn't mind answering Mikey's questions, usually. He turned the book upside down on his leg to mark its place. "Don McLean wrote American Pie after Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash. The day the music died."

Mikey gave him a blank look.

"Do you know who those people are?"

"Nope."

"They were all influential musicians, back in the 1950s. It was a tragedy that they all died, all at the same time. The song alludes to their deaths, and how it affected the culture."

"Huh."

April and Donny continued singing, oblivious to the discussion they were creating.

"Okay—okay, what about that part?" Mikey asked. "The part that says, while Lenin read a book on Marx? What does that have to do with people dying in a plane wreck?"

Leonardo considered this question for a moment. "Mikey," he finally said, "who do you think Lenin and Marx refer to?"

The return question startled him, but only a second. "John Lennon and Groucho Marx."

Slowly, in an effort not to smile, Leo nodded in mock understanding.

"What? Is it Harpo? Gummo?"

In spite his best efforts, Leo chuckled.

"What?"

He tried to explain, he really tried, because he never wanted to make Mikey feel bad or stupid, but it was all he could do not to snort in uncontrolled laughter.

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fin.